SV Kooky Dance

The Long Island Rally

By Capt. Scott Buckley

The Long Island Rally

There was a lot of interest in joining the Long Island rally from Georgetown but the weather was not cooperating. The decision was made to move the departure date from Georgetown up a couple of days and forgo the racing along the way because the winds were on the nose and many of the passages too narrow to tack a bunch of boats through. More than 80 boats had signed up.
On rally day only 41 boats remained and only 35 made it all the way to Long Island. I caught a barracuda in route.

There were rallies and parties on the beach at the Long Island Regatta center and a race planned for the next day.

We crossed the tropic of cancer and had a little celebration on SV Kooky Dance.

We finally arrived on Thompson Bay Long Island at about 3PM the same afternoon.

I entered the dinghy in the race and won the dinghy class. The waves were pretty big for the dinghy and I had to keep stopping to bail the boat out during the race. It was even announced that I was bailing as I crossed the finish line.

Part of the rally was dinner in a cave. At the time it seemed like a wonderful adventure but all it really was was a dinner in a cave and once it was over did not sound so wonderful. It was expensive and not at all pleasant. It was smelly, difficult and very dirty.

The next day we rented a car and toured around Long Island. We went thru the town of Buckley and had to get a picture.

We saw allot of beautiful coast.

We explored some ruins.

The highlight for me was Dean’s Blue Hole. At 663 feet, the deepest in the world.

We headed north from Thompson Bay to anchor down at Hog Cay at the very north end of Long Island. We planned to make a passage the next day to Cat Island.

Update on Cruising on the Exumas

By Capt. Scott Buckley

Location Southern Exumas

It looks like the last update to this blog was February 19 or about a month ago. The promised next blog was to be about getting to Georgetown Exuma.

Georgetown Great Exuma

Well we did it. We had a big northern swell running that made the entrance into Elizabeth Harbor rather exciting. I think it got the 1st mate so spooked I don’t think she wanted to ever leave Georgetown for fear of facing the big swells again. In time her resolve to move on strengthened.

Its difficult to get a picture of a large following swell but as they are barreling toward you they can be intimidating. In fact I may have soiled myself a little on that one as I thought it was going to break over us.
So we got into Georgetown on about the 13 of Feb 2015 along with SV Sole Serenade and SV Alice Mae. We assembled the dinghy and rowed into the famous Volley Ball beach. I later put up the dinghy sails and the 1st mate and I sailed around Elizabeth Harbor to find and say HI to other familiar boats. Getting to Georgetown was a big step for us as new cruisers.

The Georgetown Cruiser’s Regatta

Georgetown has 2 regattas a year. The Cruiser’s regatta in February and the Family Regatta in April. We were entered to race on SV Alice Mae for the Cruiser’s regatta. The winds were not favorable for Alice Mae and we actually spent more time fishing than we did racing. the after race party was allot of fun.

Well we did not win and did not catch any fish but still had a good time.
We would go on to join the Long Island Rally and regatta in the next post.

1st mate on what we have been doing

by First Mate Tamera

We have been to Long Island, Cat Island and Little San Salvador.

We went to Long Island as part of a cruising rally. That is when a whole bunch of boats head to the same destination such as Long Island. Sometimes it is a race to get there but this year since there was large waves and on the nose wind there was no sailing so everyone just motored. The following day there was a race and Scott won first place in his class.

We rented a car and drove around Long Island with our Buddy Boat Alice Mae.

We ate dinner in a cave……

Looked at some ruins and really old cemeteries

And then there was the bars and restaurants we visited

Then we went to Cat Island where Scott (Massive Mon – his island nick-name = because he has caught the biggest fish and lobster here) caught me a lobster dinner – Yeah !!!

Wait for it….

We also visited the Hermitage in New Bight

We went to Little San Salvador to snorkel but it was too rough so we anchored in Half Moon Bay – this is a private island for the cruise ships. Us Gypsy folks can anchor here when the ships are not here.